


You Don't Understand Charcuterie

by ProfessorDrarry



Series: Drarry One Shot [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Confessions, Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, First Kiss, Freeform, Job Loss, M/M, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-14 00:42:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21006848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorDrarry/pseuds/ProfessorDrarry
Summary: Draco has lost his job, and Harry isn't sure what to do now.





	You Don't Understand Charcuterie

**H: **Going to grab a coffee. Usual latte? 

**H: **Last chance. Not buying a rando coffee again if you’re going to be an ass. 

**H: ** Fine. Serves you right, now that I’m here and see you aren’t even in yet. You hungover again?  
  
**H: ** DRACO. Remember that place you have to be every day? Work? Ring any bells?  
  
**H: **Okay, what the hell. Maggie just looked at me with a very suspicious look and said you weren’t coming in today. WE HAVE FIVE OPEN CASES. YOu’d better be dead. I know you aren’t sick. I saw you last night. 

**H: **Draco. Answer. Me. 

**H**: Okay, seriously. I’m worried. I hate being worried. Don’t make me call your mother. 

**H: **Answer me in five minutes or I’m coming to your flat. 

_ **D: ** Don’t you dare call my bloody mother. I was laid off, Potter. They said I wasn’t ‘the appropriate skill level to keep during this time of austerity’. _

_ **D: ** Which is obviously code for ‘Death Eater’ and ‘easiest to sell to the press’ _

_ **D: ** I’ll clean out my desk tomorrow. Wasn’t up to it today. _

**H: **I’m sorry. WHAT? I’m going to talk to Andrews right now. 

_ **D: ** HARRY FOR FUCKS SAKE DO NOT TALK TO ANDREWS. _

_ **D: ** It’s fine. It’s...opportunity. _

**H: **Fuck that. I don’t want to have to get used to a new partner. 

**H: **Not everything is about you, you know. 

_ **D: ** Just leave it, Harry. _

* * *

Thirty-five minutes had passed, every single one of them spent with Draco staring at his phone screen. He hadn’t stopped alternating between tearing up and overwhelming fury since his meeting with the head Cursebreaker the day before. It wasn’t the type of mood one brought into the Ministry, but part of him _ did _feel guilty for not having messaged Harry earlier. 

Which was ridiculous, obviously. They were coworkers, not best mates. He didn’t owe Potter news. 

And yet. 

When the doorbell rang, Draco dragged himself up out of his prone position for the first time in an hour, disgusted with his own inability to get dressed. He’d never in his _ life _ answered the door in sweats. Apparently that was about to change. At least the grey-specked fabric was clean, and his t-shirt was designer. If you squinted, Draco _ almost _ looked put together enough for the package delivery he was sure was behind the door.  
  
“Harry!”  
  
“Draco,” Harry replied calmly, proffering a large bag and picking one up from the porch where he’d evidently put it down. “Do you mind? These are heavy and I walked from the tube.” 

“What the hell are you doing here? Cases, etc? You were yelling at me about them just an hour ago.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “Took the day in protest. They don’t fire my partner without telling me and get away with it. I brought food. Fired food.”  
  
“What the hell is ‘fired food’?”  
  
Harry flushed slightly but he grinned. “Honestly? It’s mostly breakup food. I figured emotional eating is emotional eating, regardless of the cause.”  
  
“You don’t need to be here. I’m fine. Honestly. This is...kind, or whatever, but—”  
  
Harry’s smile faltered. “Oh. Shit. This is weird, isn’t it? Damn. It is. Sorry, I keep forgetting we aren’t exactly…”  
  
“Not close,” Draco supplied. Harry nodded. “It’s not that weird. Seriously. It’s nice of you to check-in, but I’m okay.”  
  
“Have you told anyone else?”  
  
Draco looked down. 

“Yeah, okay. Shove aside. I’m making you a drink.”  
  
“It’s half ten!” Draco called after harry. 

“There’s Irish cream for coffee. It’s like...brunch.”  
  
“I—” But Draco gave up protesting. If he was honest with himself he knew three things. 

One, he was sad. Two, he was very much aware of the fact that the number of people on the planet who were going to understand exactly why were very limited, and one of them was currently fumbling around his kitchen presumably looking for coffee making supplies. And three, he could really use a fucking drink. He lurched forward and silently took over the making of coffee from Harry, who was looking helpless over Draco’s prized Italian espresso machine. Harry turned back to his bags, unpacking a great variety of biscuits, crackers and cheese, bars of chocolate, crisps. Draco handed him a tray and watched in amusement as Harry put together the trashiest, _ most _appealing charcuterie board Draco had ever seen. 

Draco carried drinks into the living room with Harry close behind. 

“Your house is gorgeous,” Harry stated reverently. Draco’s face warmed with happy pride. He loved his house. It was his pet project. 

“Thanks. For everything.”  
  
Harry beamed at him, a wry twist to his mouth that made Draco smirk in question. “It’s just surreal, don’t you think? You told me, and I was instantly _ furious. _ How _ dare _ they choose you to cut just because they think they understand your past. And that made me laugh.”  
  
“Because three years ago, you would have supported the decision,” Draco nodded. 

“Three years ago, _ I _ tried to have you fired.”  
  
“Yes, I remember,” Draco smirked. 

“Well, that’s my point. They’re as wrong now as I was then. You’re the best Cursebreaker they have. But by the time they figure that out, you’ll have found yourself some gloriously complicated private practice and be making buttloads of money with a fancy beau on your arm, and they’ll be sorry.”  
  
“‘Fancy beau’?” Draco laughed loudly. “Who the fuck are you?”  
  
“Whatever, you know what I mean. I’m furious because they don’t even understand how little you need them. But I do.”  
  
Draco froze. He knew what Harry meant, but the implication sparked a thing inside of him that he’d long ago gotten under control. Either something on Draco’s face, or else the realisation of the words he’d spoken had Harry blushing and backpedalling. 

“I need you to be there, solving cases and kicking people in the behind to get things done. You know what I’m like. Flying in with no plan. I’m likely going to die by next week.”  
  
Draco forced a laugh as Harry buried his face in his coffee. “There’s always the option of being _ less _ reckless.”  
  
Harry laughed back and they sat in an oddly heated silence for a moment.  
  
“I meant what I said, in my text. I’m fine. I lasted longer in the Ministry than anyone thought I was going to. Now I have time to pursue other...things. Do I know what those things are? No. But...I’ll figure it out. I’m resourceful.”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry said, a sort of fondness in his tone that made Draco look at him. He was smiling. “Yeah, I know. I’m still going to be angry. And sad.”  
  
“Sad?”  
  
“I…” Harry stopped midsentence. 

He’d been perched on the edge of Draco’s sofa, not looking settled but also looking pretty normal. Harry Potter always sort of looked like he could fly into action. At least, Harry Potter at work was. Draco had spent an uncomfortable amount of time wondering what a relaxed Harry looked like. What did Harry, out of uniform and lounging, even resemble? Draco had a hard time imagining the spring uncoiled, the flighty energy resting. When he stood suddenly, it didn’t startle Draco because he was pretty used to Harry leaping first and explaining later. It was slightly more worrying, though, when Harry started pacing.. 

“So, let me understand,” he said. “You aren’t asking for your job back? You aren’t going to...fight for your position, or something?”  
  
“Not bloody likely. I’m hardly the ‘go back on my knees and beg’ type.”  
  
“But, jobs can be hard to find.”  
  
“Your concern is touching,” Draco scoffed. “But I assure you, I’m fine. I will be...fine. For a few months.”  
  
“So there is no way, in any world, where you are going to come back and suddenly be my partner again in the Auror department.”  
  
“For goodness sake, Potter, no. You’ll survive a new partner. God, and you call _ me _ Dramatic.”  
  
“Not working with me anymore,” Harry muttered, quietly enough that Draco wasn’t sure he was still a part of the conversation. “Not working with me anymore, not my fault. Is that...inside his flat. And, obviously, fine. So. Now. Yes. Now, Potter.”  
  
“Are you alright?” Draco asked, not sure if his tone was aiming for concern or mocking and therefore falling flat.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry breathed, running a hand through his hair and disheveling his attempts to flatten it. “Yeah, I’m...Draco.” He put his coffee down slowly on the table and sat beside Draco on the couch, facing him and inhaling deeply. “Draco, I need to…tell you. Something.”  
  
“Okay…”  
  
“I. You. I haven’t been able to… I mean, we worked together, and I’m me and you’re you and frankly, that’s enough for…I just realised I needed to shut up and let you live your life, but it’s been hard. So _ bloody _ hard, because. Well. _ Look at you. _ ”  
  
Harry, as though following his own demand, was staring at Draco and trying to see into his soul. In an instant, it all made sense; Draco’s body flooded with heated relief.

Pansy had tried to convince him he was crazy, that the job was getting to him. That the late-night dinners and the morning coffee and the texting were just him spending too much time on cases and not enough time dating. That the sporadic work trips out of town where Potter _ only _accepted if Draco was able to go were simply trusting an Auror partner. That nothing existed between them that hadn’t always been there, a tolerant animosity built on mutual respect. She insisted, so he’d squashed the flame. Despite the fired food and the Irish Coffee and the Christmas gifts. 

But now, in the hope in Harry’s eyes, the embarrassment in his face, the fluster in his fidgeting fingers, Draco knew he had been right all along. And he was unable to contain his glee. 

He threw himself forward and kissed Harry, fiercely knocking him back on the couch, making up for all the times he’d almost closed the gap between them, for all the moments he wanted to reach out and tug on Harry’s curl behind his ear or fix his crooked glasses. Draco kissed Harry for three years of working too many hours side-by-side and yet ignoring how marvellous he smelled. He kissed Harry for his bravery, for his rushing into every situation but this one. He kissed Harry with all the gratitude he would never be able to express for not putting their working friendship in jeopardy, ever, even though he was _ sure _it had been as painful for Harry as it had been for Draco. 

Harry smiled against his lips and Draco pulled back to note that Harry—Harry Potter, famed battle survivor—had damp eyes.  
  
“Sorry,” he said when he noticed Draco looking. “This is so stupid. Its just...my friends had convinced me I was crazy.”  
  
“Mine too,” Draco whispered, running a thumb across his cheek and grinning. “They should know better by now than to doubt _ us _ , of all people.”  
  
“So wait,” Harry insisted, sounding awed. “You...you too?”  
  
“Well, no, but you did bring me biscuits.”  
  
Harry tried to pull back like he’d been shot. 

“I’m kidding!” Draco laughed, reaching forward and pulling Harry to him by the nape of his neck. “Good lord, you’d better not stay this jumpy. I expect Sunday lounging. And movie nights. You think you can stay still long enough?”  
  
“Getting a bit ahead of yourself,” Harry harrumphed. 

“Sorry,” Draco shrugged, hands playing with the hair at the base of Harry’s neck. 

Harry leaned in, testing a boundary that Draco had already decided no longer needed to exist. Draco finished moving for him until their lips met once more. Harry’s face flushed very beautifully when he was embarrassed and happy, and Draco knew, even now, he’d never grow tired of causing it. 

“No, you’re not,” Harry whispered, kissing Draco delicately.


End file.
